Acts 17:28-31 27Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 28for “‘In him we live and move and exist’; as even some of your own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed his offspring.’ 29Therefore, being God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and human imagination. 30Therefore, the times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31because he has set a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, having provided proof to all by raising him from the dead.”
Paul began to connect the fundamental theology of God as creator to the Athenians. They may have reasoned the idea of an Unmoved Mover, but Paul went further and personalized God as being near each person. Humans have their origin from God. Paul appealed to an authority the Athenians would have recognized and accepted by quoting from the Stoic poet Aratus of Soli, who lived in the first half of the third century B.C. Aratus may have quoted a hymn to Zeus from the poet Cleanthes. The poem may have been well known among the Greeks, and they would have recognized these phrases from it. The first phrase poetically restates how humans are dependent on a Creator for life itself. The second phrase shows how humans get their nature from this Creator. We are like the one who created us because we are his offspring.
In verse 29, Paul moves further in his logic to question why people create idols when God is the one who creates humans, not humans who create God. Why do people think they can imagine and create an image of God? God is not our offspring, and we are not the creators. Paul goes one step further in his logic in verses 30-31. If the Athenians accepted Paul’s logic, they would realize they were wrong with all their idols and pantheon of gods and goddesses. Up until that point, God could overlook their ignorance. They were like the rest of humanity that tried to make sense of creation but was compelled by a fallen nature to turn inward into humanistic imagination and thinking. They had relied on natural revelation, which they interpreted selfishly by creating gods and goddesses in their own images. Paul was bringing a fuller revelation of the one true God, which made the Athenians accountable. They needed to repent of their ignorance; otherwise, they would face judgment. The “unknown god” was now the known God, and Paul was helping them understand him. When ignorance is removed, a person becomes more accountable to the revealed truth.
Paul moves further at the end of verse 31 and begins to connect his argument to the gospel he preached. He moves into difficult territory with ideas that would have been strange to the Athenians. Even the idea of repenting assumes committing of some wrong and turning away from it. The Athenians would need to accept the fault of their ways, which is not easy for anyone to do. Second, the reason for repentance would also be difficult to accept. A day of accountability was coming when people would be judged by the truth Paul was revealing. Behind this idea is the assumption of a divine plan for the close of history. Third, the world will be judged by a man Paul did not name yet. The Athenians were used to judgment and justice, so this statement may not have been so shocking, but the last point caused a stir. Fourth, the worthiness of this man to judge was proven by his resurrection from the dead. Bodily resurrection would have been a difficult idea for the Greeks to accept. They believed in the immortality of the soul, which separates from the body at death. True existence was spiritual in nature. What Paul said at this point brought a reaction.